Page 56 of The Viscount's Seduction
Chapter 13
Bakeley strode backand braced his hands on the back of his chair. “Father. Have you gone mad?Call me Father, Sirena? Only days ago you were telling me to stay away from her.”
Kincaid cleared his throat. Bakeley ignored him.
“Did you listen?” Shaldon said. “Did it keep you away from her? No. You were as besotted as a puppy the moment you took her in the dance.”
Fire rushed through him. Besotted, yes, and he should be well on his way to taking her in more than just a dance, instead of talking about using her as bait to draw in a radical.
“But we have learned, have we not. Kincaid, that when circumstances arise, one makes the best of the situation.”
Kincaid turned away to hide a smile, and then he knew.He knew.
Shaldon had engineered his marriage to Sirena as surely as he’d done with the marriage of Bink and Paulette, though he’d used a different set of wiles.
He rubbed a hand on his cheek. He’d been dodging every one of his father’s conspiracies and plots, ever since the fiasco with Bink. Shaldon had thrown Denholm’s chit at him, knowing he would reject Lady Glenna, purposely telling him to stay away from Sirena.
He walked to the sideboard where Hackwell had bottles of liquor and poured himself an amber liquid from a cut glass carafe. Brandy, he hoped.
He quaffed it back and almost choked. It was a strong Scotch whisky, with a bracing burn that smoothed out on the way down. He poured another.
“Not too many, my son, if you’re going to take effective action with your bride tonight.”
He cursed low under his breath and drank.
His mind swam with pictures of her in her gold and red gown, and a chuckle bubbled up from the spot where the liquor had settled. His father’s wishes for his marriage and his own had coincided, and that hadn’t changed. He had no regrets—so far—about the wife he’d chosen.
But she wasn’t going to work for the British Secret Service. That he wouldnotallow.
“So what is your plan, Father, Kincaid? Or shall I say, what are the parts of your plan you’re willing to share with me?”
“Don’t be angry with me, boy. You’re not unhappy with your wife.”
It was true. He wasn’t. “Nothing can be straightforward with you, can it, Father? First Bink, now me. And you almost got Paulette and Bink killed.”
“Because they didn’t trust me.”
“And who could?”
“The right spouse makes all the difference in your happiness. I’ve tried to lead you lads in the way that would be most effective.”
“Most effective?”
“Yes. My eldest is a warrior. I knew when he saw Paulette in danger, he’d protect her. And then there was the money settled on them, and the chance to stand for Parliament and right the wrongs he saw in society.”
“I see.”
And none of those applied to him. He was a steward of the family wealth, not a warrior. He was rich already. And he would, someday, take his place in the Lords when he inherited.
When his father died.
He studied the amber liquid. He had no wish to rush into the Lords.
“And me, Father?”
Shaldon made a rumbling noise in his throat, sending up a fit of coughing from his gut. Kincaid poured him some of the whisky and handed him the tumbler.
“Please. No swooning, Father. No pretending to die before we have this little talk.”
